Chapter I

Lara Croft was walking down the hallway that led away from her room when she felt an explosion rock the floor of her home that reminded her of one she had felt 17 years before.

As she took in the realization of what happened, she took off in a sprint down the hall towards the source of the massive explosion and into the intense heat that had now enveloped the foyer outside her hallway door.

There was a frantic feeling inside her mind despite the cool front she put on in the face of such danger. When she got outside the door she wandered up to the balcony that was an overhang to the main foyer of her mansion-like home.

Looking down upon the scene, she saw that Zip & Winston were nowhere to bee seen, but there was a dark figure facing away from her in the foyer.

She jumped down off the balcony, the drop being nothing compared to some falls that she'd had in her lifetime.

Her right hand snaked its way down to the pistol in the holder she had strapped to both thighs and instinctively grabbed the gun which it held- one of the pair of her signature pistols- and grasped it.

"Who are you?" she asked the figure hulking in front of her.

It's voice came out a raspy version of one that seemed so familiar, but she couldn't place from where she'd heard it, "I believe you can answer that question yourself, Lara. I believe that somewhere, you truly know who I am and why I'm here."

Lara's brain still couldn't grasp whom she had heard this voice from before.

She pulled her pistol up to face the back of the creature's head. "Tell me. now. show your face or die."

The thing stood up and turned around to face Lara, not the least bit scared of her gun in its face.

Lara gasped and almost dropped the pistol she was holding. "Alister?! You're alive?"

There before her stood the long lost Alister Fletcher- her research guy, best friend, and the love of her life- wearing his signature suit, only now the suit's main color turned black and the lines and undershirt a shade of dark purple- like a midnight sky- and his eyes were filled with a darkness that Lara could barely stand to see in his once beautiful and kind eyes, a hatred that it hurt Lara to see in him, because she knew that this was not the Alister she knew.

"You like the new look?" he asked in a mocking tone of voice. "I thought it was more... Suiting than my old one." as he said this, a spark in his eye betrayed the anger he possessed in this situation.

"Alister, I've missed you so much-we all have. Zip, Winston, and I- we have all missed your company, and I wish what had happened that night- the night of the explosion- hadn't happened. If I could rewind time, I would throw myself in front of that bullet to save you Alister. That's how much I'm sorry for what happened."

Alister sneered at her. "Apparently you didn't miss me enough. Did you? You sure didn't come looking for me. No, you found your mum and completely forgot about me and left me to die in that cruel world- just like you and Amanda would have, just like your mom did."

And he stared at her with such hatred that it sent chills down her spine.

He continued, "Now Look at the monster you created. I- unlike most people apparently- have the ability to resist the becoming of a thrall, and while I was down there, I didn't rot away like most would have, I embraced the underworld, I Absorbed it, and now I have the superhuman powers you only could have dreamed of. I am- in short- my own doppelganger. I need no evil alter-ego, no thing out to kill me. I cant be possessed by 'Ohk Eshiva' like your precious twin you seem to have grown so fond of. I absorbed the powers of Hell, and now, when I have escaped and come back, I bring a bit of Hell back in me."

Lara stared as Alister said all of this. "So you want to kill me? for leaving you there? Alister I didn't, I wouldn't-"

Alister flicked lazily at a stray piece of fuzz on his black suit jacket, "Yes, Yes, and Bingo."

With a sudden movement, before Lara could respond, Alister was on top of her and had her pinned to the ground, he back pressing into the cold stone floor.

"I'm back, and I'm better than before. Back from the underworld, Alister Fletcher."

With a smirk, at the speed of lightning, he then took off into the darkness saying as he went, "I'll be waiting in your bedroom if you want to talk."

Lara got up off the floor, brushed herself off, then made up her mind.

She had to talk to Alister

to be continued.....